disagreements with Tiberius had broken out, she could no longer hope to
be the powerful wife of the first person of the empire after Augustus,
she sought compensation. Thus there formed about Julia a party which
sought in every way to ruin the lofty position which Tiberius occupied
in the state, by setting up against him Caius Caesar, the son of Julia
by Agrippa, whom Augustus had adopted and of whom he was very fond. In
6 B.C., Caius Caesar was only fourteen years old, but at that period an
agitation was set on foot whereby, through a special privilege conceded
to him by the senate, he was to be named consul for the year of Rome
754, when Caius should have reached twenty. This was a manoeuver of
the Julian party to attract popular attention to the youth, to prepare
a rival for Tiberius in his quality as principal collaborator of
Augustus, and to gain a hold upon the future head of the state.
The move was altogether very bold; for this nomination of a child
consul contradicted all the fundamental principles of the Roman
constitution, and it would probably have been fatal to the party which
evolved it, had not the indignant rage of Tiberius assured its triumph.
Tiberius opposed this law, which he took as an offense, and he wished
Augustus to oppose it, and at the outset Augustus did so. But then,
either because Julia was able to bend him to her desires or because in
the senate there was in truth a strong party which supported it out of
hatred for Tiberius, Augustus at last yielded, seeking to placate
Tiberius with other compensations. But Tiberius was too proud and
violent an aristocrat to accept compensations and indignantly demanded
permission to retire to Rhodes, abandoning all the public offices which
he exercised. He certainly hoped to make his loss felt, for indeed
Rome needed him. But he was mistaken. This act of Tiberius was
severely judged by public opinion as a reprisal upon the public for a
private offense. Augustus became angry with him and in his absence all
his enemies took courage and hurled themselves against him. The honors
to Caius Caesar were approved amid general enthusiasm and the Julian
party triumphed all along the line; it reached the height of power and
popularity, while Tiberius was constrained to content himself with the
idle life of a private person at Rhodes.
[Illustration: A reception at Livia's villa. The scene evidently is at
Livia's country palace at Prima Porta. Agrippa is seen descending the
steps to be received by Augustus and Livia (who are not shown in the
picture). The original of the status of Augustus, here shown, was
found in the ruins of Livia's villa close to the flight of marble steps
and its base. The remains of the steps and the base of the statue are
standing to-day at Prima Porta.]
But at Rome Livia still remained. From that moment began the mortal
duel between Livia and Julia.
III
THE DAUGHTERS OF AGRIPPA
Tiberius had now broken with Augustus, he had lost the support of
public opinion, he was hated by the majority of the senate. At Rhodes
he soon found himself, therefore, in the awkward position of one who
through a false move has played into the hands of his enemies and sees
no way of recovering his position. It had been easy to leave Rome; to
reënter it was difficult, and in all probability his fortune would have
been forever compromised, and he would never have become emperor, had
it not been for the fact that in the midst of this general defection
two women remained faithful. They were his mother, Livia, and his
sister-in-law, Antonia, the widow of that brother Drusus who, dying in
his youth, had carried to his grave the hopes of Rome.
Antonia was the daughter of the emperor's sister Octavia and of Mark
Antony, the famous triumvir whose name remains forever linked in story
with that of Cleopatra. This daughter of Antony was certainly the
noblest and the gentlest of all the women who appear in the lugubrious
and tragic history of the family of the Caesars. Serious, modest, and
even-tempered, she was likewise endowed with beauty and virtue, and she
brought into the family and into its struggles a spirit of concord,
serenity of mind, and sweet reasonableness, though they could not
always prevail against the violent passions and clashing interests of
those about her. As long as Drusus lived, Drusus and Antonia had been
for the Romans the model of the devoted pair of lovers, and their
tender affection had become proverbial; yet the Roman multitude, always
given to admiring the descendants of the great families, was even more
deeply impressed by the beauty, the virtue, the sweetness, the modesty,
and the reserve of Antonia. After the death of Drusus, she did not
wish to marry again, even though the _Lex de maritandis ordinibus_ made
it a duty. "Young and beautiful," wrote Valerius Maximus, "she
withdrew to a life of retirement in the company of Livia, and the same
bed which had seen the death of the youthful husband saw his faithful
spouse grow old in an austere widowhood." Augustus and the people were
so touched by this supreme proof of fidelity to the memory of the
ever-cherished husband that by the common consent of public opinion she
was relieved of the necessity of remarrying; and Augustus himself, who
had always carefully watched over the observance of the marital law in
his own family, did not dare insist. Whether living at her villa of
Bauli, where she spent the larger part of her year, or at Rome, the
beautiful widow gave her attention to the bringing up of her three
children, Germanicus, Livilla, and Claudius. Ever since the death of
Octavia, she had worshiped Livia as a mother and lived in the closest
intimacy with her, and, withdrawn from public life, she attempted now
to bring a spirit of peace into the torn and tragic family.
Antonia was very friendly with Tiberius, who, on his side, felt the
deepest sympathy and respect for his beautiful and virtuous
sister-in-law. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that in this crisis
Antonia, who was bound to Livia by many ties, must have taken sides for
Livia's son Tiberius. But Antonia was too gentle and mild to lead a
faction in the struggle which during these years began between the
friends and the enemies of Tiberius, and that rôle was assumed by
Livia, who possessed more strength and more authority.
The situation grew worse and worse. Public opinion steadily became
more hostile to Tiberius and more favorable to Julia and her elder son,
and it was not long before they wished to give to her younger son,
Lucius, the same honors which had already been bestowed upon his
brother Caius. Private interest soon allied itself with the hatred and
rancor against Tiberius; and scarcely had he departed when the senate
increased the appropriation for public supplies and public games. All
those who profited by these appropriations were naturally interested in
preventing the return of Tiberius, who was notorious for his opposition
to all useless expenditures. Any measure, however dishonest, was
therefore considered proper, provided only it helped to ruin Tiberius;
and his enemies had recourse to every art and calumny, among other
things actually accusing him of conspiracies against Augustus. Even
for a woman as able and energetic as Livia it was an arduous task to
struggle against the inclinations of Augustus, against public opinion,
against the majority of the senate, against private interest, and
against Julia and her friends. Indeed, four years passed during which
the situation of Tiberius and his party grew steadily worse, while the
party of Julia increased in power.
Finally the party of Tiberius resolved to attempt a startlingly bold
move. They decided to cripple the opposition by means of a terrible
scandal in the very person of Julia. The _Lex Julia de adulteriis_,
framed by Augustus in the year 18, authorized any citizen to denounce
an unfaithful wife before the judges, if the husband and father should
both refuse to make the accusation. This law, which was binding upon
all Roman citizens, was therefore applicable even to the daughter of
Augustus, the widow of Agrippa, the mother of Caius and Lucius Caesar,
those two youths in whom were centered the hopes of the republic. She
had violated the _Lex Julia_ and she had escaped the penalties which
had been visited on many other ladies of the aristocracy only because
no one had dared to call down this scandal upon the first family of the
empire. The party of Tiberius, protected and guided by Livia, at last
hazarded this step.
It is impossible to say what part Livia played in this terrible
tragedy. It is certain that either she or some other influential
personage succeeded in gaining possession of the proofs of Julia's
guilt and brought them to Augustus, threatening to lay them before the
pretor and to institute proceedings if he did not discharge his duty.
Augustus found himself constrained to apply to himself his own terrible
law. He himself had decreed that if the husband, as was then the case
of Tiberius, could not accuse a faithless woman, the father must do so.
It was his law, and he had to bow to it in order to avoid scandals and
worse consequences. He exiled Julia to the little island of
Pandataria, and at the age of thirty-seven the brilliant, pleasing, and
voluptuous young woman who had dazzled Rome for many years was
compelled to disappear from the metropolis forever and retire to an
existence on a barren island. She was cut off by the implacable hatred
of a hostile party and by the inexorable cruelty of a law framed by her
own father!
[Illustration: Mark Antony.]
The exile of Julia marks the moment when the fortunes of Tiberius and
Livia, which had been steadily losing ground for four years, began to
revive, though not so rapidly as Livia and Tiberius had probably
expected. Julia preserved, even in her misfortune, many faithful
friends and a great popularity. For a long time popular demonstrations
were held in her favor at Rome, and many busied themselves tenaciously
to obtain her pardon from Augustus, all of which goes to prove that the
horrible infamies which were spread about her were the inventions of
enemies. Julia had broken the _Lex Julia_,--so much is certain,--but
even if she had been guilty of an unfortunate act, she was not a
monster, as her enemies wished to have it believed. She was a
beautiful woman, as there had been before, as there are now, and as
there will be hereafter, touched with human vices and with human
virtues.
As a matter of fact, her party, after it had recovered from the
terrible shock of the scandal, quickly reorganized. Firm in its
intention of having Julia pardoned, it took up the struggle again, and
tried as far as it could to hinder Tiberius from returning to Rome and
again taking part in political life, knowing well that if the husband
once set foot in Rome, all hope of Julia's return would be lost. Only
one of them could reënter Rome. It was either Tiberius or Julia; and
more furiously than ever the struggle between the two parties was waged
about Augustus.
Caius and Lucius Caesar, Julia's two youthful sons, of whom Augustus
was very fond, were the principal instruments with which the enemies of
Tiberius fought against the influence of Livia over Augustus. Every
effort was made to sow hatred and distrust between the two youths and
Tiberius, to the end that it might become impossible to have them
collaborate with him in the government of the empire, and that the
presence of Julia's sons should of necessity exclude that of her
husband. A further ally was soon found in the person of another child
of Julia and Agrippa, the daughter who has come down into history under
the name of the Younger Julia. Augustus had conceived as great a love
for her as for the two sons, and there was no doubt that she would aid
with every means in her power the party averse to Tiberius; for her
mother's instincts of liberty, luxury, and pleasure were also inherent
in her. Married to L. Aemilius Paulus, the son of one of the greatest
Roman families, she had early assumed in Rome a position which made
her, like her mother, the antithesis of Livia. She, too, gathered
about her, as the elder Julia had done, a court of elegant youths, men
of letters, and poets,--Ovid was of the number,--and with this group
she hoped to be able to hold the balance of power in the government
against that coterie of aged senators who paid court to Livia. She,
too, took advantage of the good-will of her grandfather, just as her
mother had done, and in the shadow of his protection she displayed an
extravagance which the laws did not permit, but which, on this account,
was all the more admired by the enemies of the old Roman Puritanism.
As though openly to defy the sumptuary law of Augustus, she built
herself a magnificent villa; and, if we dare believe tradition, it was
not long before she, too, had violated the very law which had proved
disastrous to her mother.
Thus, even after the departure of Julia, her three children, Caius,
Lucius, and Julia the Younger, constituted in Rome an alliance which
was sufficiently powerful to contest every inch of ground with the
party of Livia; for they had public opinion in their favor, they
enjoyed the support of the senate, and they played upon the weakness of
Augustus. In the year 2 A.D., after four years of exhaustive efforts
spent in struggle and intrigue, all that Livia had been able to obtain
was the mere permission that Tiberius might return to Rome, under the
conditions, however, that he retire to private life, that he give
himself up to the education of his son, and that he in no wise mingle
in public affairs. The condition of the empire was growing worse on
every side; the finances were disordered, the army was disorganized,
and the frontiers were threatened, for revolt was raising its head in
Gaul, in Pannonia, and especially in Germany. Every day the situation
seemed to demand the hand of Tiberius, who, now in the prime of life,
was recognized as one of the leading administrators and the first
general of the empire. But, for all Livia's insistence, Augustus
refused to call Tiberius back into the government. The Julii were
masters of the state, and held the Claudii at a distance.
[Illustration: Antony and Cleopatra.]
Perhaps Tiberius would never have returned to power in Rome had not
chance aided him in the sudden taking off, in a strange and unforeseen
manner, of Caius and Lucius Caesar. The latter died at Marseilles,
following a brief illness, shortly after the return of Tiberius to
Rome, August 29, in the year 2 A.D. It was a great grief to Augustus,
and, twenty months after, was followed by another still more serious.
In February of the year 4, Caius also died, in Lycia, of a wound
received in a skirmish. These two deaths were so premature, so close
to each other, and so opportune for Tiberius, that posterity has
refused to see in them simply one of the many mischances of life.
Later generations have tried to believe that Livia had a hand in these
fatalities. Yet he who understands life at all knows that it is easier
to imagine and suspect romantic poisonings of this sort than it is to
carry them out. Even leaving the character of Livia out of
consideration, it is difficult to imagine how she would have dared, or
have been able, to poison the two youths at so great a distance from
Rome, one in Asia, the other in Gaul, by means of a long train of
accomplices, and this at a moment when the family of Augustus was
divided by many hatreds and every member was suspected, spied upon, and
watched by a hostile party. Furthermore, it would have been necessary
to carry this out at a time when the example of Julia proved to all
that relationship to Augustus was not a sufficient defense against the
rigors of the law and the severity of public opinion when roused by any
serious crime. Besides, it is a recognized fact that people are always
inclined to suspect a crime whenever a man prominent in the public eye
dies before his time. At Turin, for example, there still lives a
tradition among the people that Cavour was poisoned, some say by the
order of Napoleon III, others by the Jesuits, simply because his life
was suddenly cut off, at the age of fifty-two, at the moment when Italy
had greatest need of him. Indeed, even to-day we are impressed when we
see in the family of Augustus so many premature deaths of young men;
but precisely because these untimely deaths are frequent we come to see
in them the predestined ruin of a worn-out race in history. All
ancient families at a certain moment exhaust themselves. This is the
reason why no aristocracy has been able to endure for long unless
continually renewed, and why all those that have refused to take in new
blood have failed from the face of the earth. There is no serious
reason for attributing so horrible a crime to a woman who was venerated
by the best men of her time; and the fables which the populace, always
faithful to Julia, and therefore hostile to Livia, recounted on this
score, and which the historians of the succeeding age collected, have
no decisive value.
The deaths of Caius and Lucius Caesar were therefore a great good
fortune for Tiberius, because it determined his return to power. The
situation of the empire was growing worse on every hand; Germany was in
the midst of revolt, and it was necessary to turn the army over to
vigorous hands. Augustus, old and irresolute, still hesitated, fearing
the dislike which was brewing both in the senate and among the people
against the too dictatorial Tiberius. At last, however, he was forced
to yield.
The more serious, more authoritative, more ancient party of the
senatorial nobility, in accord with Livia and headed by a nephew of
Pompey, Cnaeus Cornelius Cinna, forced him to recall Tiberius,
threatening otherwise to have recourse to some violent measures the
exact character of which we do not know. The unpopularity of Tiberius
was a source of continual misgivings to the aging Augustus, and it was
only through this threat of a yet greater danger that they finally
overcame his hesitation. On June 26, in the fourth year of our era,
Augustus adopted Tiberius as his son, and had conferred upon him for
ten years the office of tribune, thus making him his colleague.
Tiberius returned to power, and, in accordance with the wishes of
Augustus, adopted as his son Germanicus, the elder son of Drusus and
Antonia, his faithful friend. He was an intelligent, active lad of
whom all entertained the highest hopes.
[Illustration: Tiberius, elder son of Livia and stepson of Augustus.
Augustus, lacking a male heir, first adopted his younger stepson
Drusus, who died 9 B.C. owing to a fall from his horse. In 4 A.D. he
adopted Tiberius, and was succeeded by him as Emperor in 14 A.D.]
On his return to power, Tiberius, together with Augustus, took measures
for reorganizing the army and the state, and sought to bring about by
means of new marriages and acts of clemency a closer union between the
Julian and Claudian branches of the family, then bitterly divided by
the violent struggles of recent years. The terms of Julia's exile were
made easier; Germanicus married Agrippina, another daughter of Julia
and Agrippa, and a sister of Julia the Younger; the widow of Caius
Caesar, Livilla, sister of Germanicus and daughter of Antonia, was
given to Drusus, the son of Tiberius, a young man born in the same year
as Germanicus. Drusus, despite certain defects, such as irascibility
and a marked fondness for pleasure, gave evidence that he possessed the
requisite qualities of a statesman--firmness, sound judgment, and
energy. The policy which dictated these marriages was always the
same--to make of the family of Augustus one formidable and united body,
so that it might constitute the solid base of the entire government of
the empire. But, alas! wise as were the intentions, the ferments of
discord and the unhappiness of the times prevailed against them. Too
much had been hoped for in recalling Tiberius to power. During the ten
years of senile government, the empire had been reduced to a state of
utter disorder. The measures planned by Tiberius for reestablishing
the finances of the state roused the liveliest discontent among the
wealthy classes in Italy, and again excited their hatred against him.
In the year 6 A.D., the great revolt of Pannonia broke out and for a
moment filled Italy with unspeakable terror. In an instant of mob
fury, they even came to fear that the peninsula would be invaded and
Rome besieged by the barbarians of the Danube. Tiberius came to the
rescue, and with patience and coolness put down the insurrection, not
by facing it in open conflict, but by drawing out the war to such a
length as to weary the enemy, a method both safe and wise, considering
the unreliable character of the troops at his command. But at Rome,
once the fear had subsided, the long duration of the war became a new
cause for dissatisfaction and anger, and offered to many a pretext for
venting their long-cherished hatred against Tiberius, who was accused
of being afraid, of not knowing how to end the war, and of drawing it
out for motives of personal ambition. The party averse to Tiberius
again raised its head and resorted once more to its former policy--that
of urging on Germanicus against Tiberius. The former was young,
ambitious, bold, and would have preferred daring strokes and a war
quickly concluded. It is certain that there would have risen then and
there a Germanican and a Tiberian party, if Augustus, on this occasion,
had not energetically sustained Tiberius from Rome. But the situation
again became strained and full of uncertainty.
In the midst of these conflicts and these fears, a new scandal broke
out in the family of Augustus. The Younger Julia, like her mother,
allowed herself to be caught in violation of the _Lex Julia de
adulteriis_, and she also was compelled to take the road of exile. In
what manner and at whose instance the scandal was disclosed we do not
know; we do know, however, that Augustus was very fond of his
granddaughter, whence we can assume that in this moment of turbid
agitation, when so much hatred was directed against his family and his
house, and when so many forces were uniting to overthrow Tiberius
again, notwithstanding the fact that he had saved the empire, Augustus
felt that he must a second time submit to his own law. He did not dare
contend with the puritanical party, with the more conservative minority
in the senate,--the friends of Tiberius,--over this second victim in
his family. Without a doubt everything possible was done to hush up
the scandal, and there would scarcely have come down to us even a
summary notice of the exile of the second Julia had it not been that
among those exiled with her was the poet Ovid, who was to fill twenty
centuries with his laments and to bring them to the ears of the latest
generations.
Ovid's exile is one of those mysteries of history which has most keenly
excited the curiosity of the ages. Ovid himself, without knowing it,
has rendered it more acute by his prudence in not speaking more clearly
of the cause of his exile, making only rare allusions to it, which may
be summed up in his famous words, _carmen et error_. It is for this
reason that posterity has for twenty centuries been asking itself what
was this error which sent the exquisite poet away to die among the
barbarous Getae on the frozen banks of the Danube; and naturally they
have never compassed his secret. But if, therefore, it is impossible
to say exactly what the error was which cost Ovid so dearly, it is
possible, on the other hand, to explain that unique and famous episode
in the history of Rome to which, after all, Ovid owes a great part of
his immortality. He was not the victim, as has been too often
repeated, of a caprice of despotism; and therefore he cannot be
compared with any of the many Russian writers whom the administration,
through fear and hatred, deports to Siberia without definite reason.
Certainly the error of Ovid lay in his having violated some clause of
the _Lex Julia de adulteriis_, which, as we know, was so comprehensive
in its provisions that it considered as accessories to the crime those
guilty of various acts and deeds which, judged even with modern rigor
and severity, would seem reprehensible, to be sure, but not deserving
of such terrible punishment. Ovid was certainly involved under one of
these clauses,--which one we do not, and never shall, know,--but his
error, whether serious or light, was not the true cause of his
condemnation. It was the pretext used by the more conservative and
puritanical part of Roman society to vent upon him a long-standing
grudge the true motives of which lay much deeper.